Not sure where to go next in my career, I feel stuck /u/halldorr CSCQ protests reddit

TLDR: Older guy wondering if he should stay in programming or venture into new areas.

I’m an older guy (49) based in Canada and have really begun thinking about where I am and where I’d like to be. I’m not very happy in my current position but honestly don’t know where I can or should go from here.

I’ve been employed in web development for over 25 years and at the same company for the last 18 of those. I started off using Perl for backend and swapped to PHP for the majority of those 25 years. My day to day work includes PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Flutter/Dart, and MySQL databases. None of that includes anything like Laravel/React/Vue/etc, it’s all legacy stuff. Over 20 years ago I started a PHP forum open source project which still runs today (I am no longer involved) and that was some of the most rewarding time of my programming life – helping people. In my current career I mostly maintain really old legacy PHP projects specifically a CRM and more recently I brought our app development in house when I picked up Flutter/Dart a few years ago and update our apps for iOS and Android.

My current role is in a very small company, I am pretty much the only developer left as some have come and gone through the years. I have managed junior developers and even remote contractors in this time but as of right now it’s just me doing any development. There are no prospects for advancement as well since there simply is no other place to go with the bosses being two brothers. Because of this size, my salary has remained pretty stagnant for the last few years with no increases in the last three years company wide. In the open source project I oversaw developers across the world and was the project manager for the last few years before I moved on.

So I am unsure of where to go or what to do as it’s time. Time for me to move on and do something different. I, unfortunately, don’t have any formal training. All my programming I learned on my own starting from BASIC when I was very young. I merely just have my work experience. I have not kept current due to my current role being legacy stuff so I can’t easily swap to say a Laravel developer role which seems to basically double or triple my salary in some listings. Do I just put the time in and learn a new framework or language? Do I completely change careers? I am just really unsure right now but I feel stuck and it’s a terrible feeling. I looked into project management jobs but most want certification so I’d need to dig into that (which I’m not opposed to at all of course) and looked into real estate as well.

TLDR: Older guy wondering if he should stay in programming or venture into new areas.

I’m an older guy (49) based in Canada and have really begun thinking about where I am and where I’d like to be. I’m not very happy in my current position but honestly don’t know where I can or should go from here.

I’ve been employed in web development for over 25 years and at the same company for the last 18 of those. I started off using Perl for backend and swapped to PHP for the majority of those 25 years. My day to day work includes PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Flutter/Dart, and MySQL databases. None of that includes anything like Laravel/React/Vue/etc, it’s all legacy stuff. Over 20 years ago I started a PHP forum open source project which still runs today (I am no longer involved) and that was some of the most rewarding time of my programming life – helping people. In my current career I mostly maintain really old legacy PHP projects specifically a CRM and more recently I brought our app development in house when I picked up Flutter/Dart a few years ago and update our apps for iOS and Android.

My current role is in a very small company, I am pretty much the only developer left as some have come and gone through the years. I have managed junior developers and even remote contractors in this time but as of right now it’s just me doing any development. There are no prospects for advancement as well since there simply is no other place to go with the bosses being two brothers. Because of this size, my salary has remained pretty stagnant for the last few years with no increases in the last three years company wide. In the open source project I oversaw developers across the world and was the project manager for the last few years before I moved on.

So I am unsure of where to go or what to do as it’s time. Time for me to move on and do something different. I, unfortunately, don’t have any formal training. All my programming I learned on my own starting from BASIC when I was very young. I merely just have my work experience. I have not kept current due to my current role being legacy stuff so I can’t easily swap to say a Laravel developer role which seems to basically double or triple my salary in some listings. Do I just put the time in and learn a new framework or language? Do I completely change careers? I am just really unsure right now but I feel stuck and it’s a terrible feeling. I looked into project management jobs but most want certification so I’d need to dig into that (which I’m not opposed to at all of course) and looked into real estate as well.